


One More Thing

by CosmicTanzanite



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Advice, And has a lot of personal demons, Angst, Guilt, Gyro is a begrudging weird uncle figure to Webby, Magic, Nightmares, Presumed Dead, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 12:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18073538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicTanzanite/pseuds/CosmicTanzanite
Summary: When Gyro finds Webby sneaking around the lab at 2 in the morning, he demands to know why she's there





	One More Thing

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a theory I have after seeing the promo for the May episodes. I hope you all enjoy!

The buzz of an alarm startled Gyro from his work. He jolted upward before glancing down at his phone, the source of the noise. It was vibrating while the default jingle blared from the speaker, and he could read the time on its screen: 2:00 AM. Sighing, he swiped his thumb across the screen of his phone to silence it and started putting away his personal items. 

He’d set the alarm to signal when he needed to go home. Normally, Gyro would spend hours and hours on-end tolling away on his latest inventions, but after a lot of badgering, most of which came from the ever-so-doting Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera and their boss, Scrooge McDuck, he’d decided to start monitoring how late he stayed up. Although he didn’t take too kindly to being coddled as if he wasn’t a grown adult, he didn’t know how much longer he could take the two of them talking about how he was “considerably harder to work with” while suffering from a lack of sleep. And he supposed they had reasons to be worried about his health, even if he wished they didn’t. 

Once everything was put away, Gyro got to his feet and stretched backward until a loud pop was heard from his spine aligning itself. He adjusted his glasses, which had gone askew while he worked and picked up his hat that he’d set on his desk, placing it on his head. Pushing his chair under his desk and grabbing his phone, the inventor made plans to find Lil Bulb and head home for the night before he was distracted by a loud crash coming from a corner of the lab. 

A squeak left his throat at the sudden noise, and he was left standing there frozen for a moment. Most of the lab was dark, his area being illuminated by a lamp he kept on his desk. He was used to working in almost pitch black when it was late, for it shut out all distractions around him and allowed him to focus on one thing at a time, but all of a sudden, it was feeling more scary than anything. Finally, he was able to calm his nerves by reminding himself that Lil Bulb was still somewhere in the lab, and that his creation tended to get into all sorts of trouble when he wasn’t looking. He was frustrated, but it was better than being terrified.  
  
Gyro turned on his phone’s flashlight and began to walk toward the source of the noise, careful not to trip over anything Cabrera might have left out as he walked past his desk. “Lil Bulb? Lil Buuuuulb?” he called, looking every which way for the mettlesome bot. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

Nothing replied. Either Lil Bulb was really guilty, or something else had caused the noise. While Gyro was eager for signs to point toward the first option, it was unlike the robot to show much guilt about anything. Then, something caught his eyes on top of the cabinet in which he stored spare parts from failed inventions. He quickly turned toward it, shining the flashlight in its direction but seeing nothing. Gyro frowned.  
  
“Lil Bulb?” he asked, panning the flashlight a bit to the left and right only to be met with nothing. “I’m sure whatever you’ve done, I can clean- _ah!_ ”  
  
He was cut off when he noticed something moving on top of the rather high cabinet and immediately shined the light in its direction. Luckily, he’d caught it, but it wasn’t Lil Bulb. He was taken off-guard when he first saw the flash of white in front of him and noticed that it wasn’t a robot but _someone_ who had managed to sneak into the lab when he wasn’t looking. Before he could freak out too much, however, he realized it wasn’t just anyone. He was staring directly at a very terrified duckling with a pink bow in her hair.

“Webbigail?”

Almost immediately as he’d said her name, the duckling moved to the left, trying her hardest to escape, but it was no use. Gyro had seen her and recognized her already.  
  
“Hey!” he scolded, moving the light to her new location to catch her again. “Don’t you go anywhere!”  
  
Seeming to accept her defeat, Webby grinned nervously and held her hands up. “H-Hey there, Dr. Gearloose! What are you doing in here so late?”  
  
“I work here,” he said, deadpan. “What about you?”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that!” she laughed.

Gyro crossed his arms. “Seeing that it’s my lab full of dangerous and unstable inventions, and you’re a small child who my boss would not take kindly to losing, I believe I do have a right to know why you’ve decided to infiltrate my lab at two in the morning.”

Webby stood there for a moment, back against the wall and eyes darting in both directions as she tried to come up with an explanation. Finally, she pointed to her right. “Look! A robot uprising!”

Gasping, Gyro turned in that direction. “Already!? But my theories suggest that won’t happen until-wait a minute!”

He shined the light back on Webby, but she wasn’t there. Soon enough, the sound of webbed feet hitting the floor startled him, quickly followed by footsteps running as fast as they could. Catching sight of Webby, Gyro headed after her.

“What do you think you’re doing, jumping off the cabinet like that!?” he gasped, hot on her trail. “You could break a limb!”  
  
Webby didn’t reply and kept running toward the door. Unfortunately for her, Gyro somehow managed to get there first and blocked it, spreading himself across the exit and panting as he caught his breath. This made the duckling frantic.

“Dr. Gearloose, please just let me go!” she begged. “I’ll leave you alone if you just let me go and won’t tell anyone I was here, I promise!”

Gyro scoffed, slightly confused by this odd behavior of hers. “I can’t just let you wander around my lab aimlessly. You could get hurt, and I’d be fired, reprimanded heavily by my boss and violently ripped apart by your grandmother, and I am not about to let either of those things happen! Do you even know what’s in those cabinets you were playing rock climber on?”

“N-No! I don’t know a thing, I swear! Just let me go!” She tried to push past him, and although she almost managed, Gyro was able to shove her away.

“Webbigail,” he spoke, rubbing his temples, “it’s very late, and if I don’t get home and go to bed soon, my pest of an intern will give me some disappointed scolding tomorrow, and I do not want that to happen. If you tell me why you were here, I’ll help to my best ability as long as you rid me of your presence immediately after, okay?”

Webby stopped struggling and glanced to the floor, rubbing her arm and dragging her foot as if she was guilty of something. Realizing that he might have been a bit too hard on her, Gyro sighed and mentally told himself to watch his words even more than he already had to around children.

“I’m not mad at you,” he tried to comfort her. “I just don’t want you breaking your neck or blowing yourself up, especially if that’s going to be on me. In fact, if you just tell me what it is you’re looking for like I asked, I won’t say a word to Mr. McDuck as long as you lie about where you got it, alright? Let’s just make this quick and easy, and I’ll let you-”

“I need hydrochloric acid!”

“There, now was that-wait, you need WHAT!?”

“Hydrochloric acid!” Webby repeated, sounding desperate.

Gyro felt as if he might faint at the revelation. “Are you-okay, okay, I take back everything I said. You are _not_ getting your hands on hydrochloric acid, young lady!”

“I’ll be careful, I promise! I go on adventures all the time. I can handle a little acid!”

“No you must certainly cannot! Do you even know what that is? It’s incredibly corrosive! You could burn your feathers off right to the bone!”  
  
“I’ve walked over a pit of fire before, Dr. Gearloose! Just ask Mr. McDuck.”

“I am not telling Mr. McDuck that you’ve come to me begging for hydrochloric acid, and I think that’s for the best interest of both of us.”

Webby balled her hands into fists, desperation becoming even clearer on her face now. “Please, Dr. Gearloose, I really, really need it.”

Noticing that her tone had gone even more serious, Gyro raised an eyebrow. “Why would you ever need something like that?”

“I…” She thought really hard, pondering what she wanted to say.

“Kid, just tell me,” Gyro groaned, still appalled. “If you’re playing around with dangerous acid, I need to tell Mr. McDuck, so he can-”

“No! Don’t tell him!”

Webby waved her hands in front of Gyro, and he noticed tears starting to form in the duckling’s eyes. Uh oh. He was the worst possible candidate when it came to dealing with crying children. Gulping, he tried to choose his words carefully.

“Okay, I won’t tell him,” he reassured her, trying to calm himself. “I promise I won’t if you just tell me whatever it is that’s gotten you here in my lab begging for a very dangerous substance that could possibly kill you, which would indirectly cause my ultimate demise! Blathering blatherskite, Webbigail, I thought you were smarter than this!”

Well, that didn’t go as planned. And as if on cue with his accidentally hurtful words, Webby broke down, falling to her knees and sobbing.

Gyro watched her for a few seconds, heart thudding as he realized how badly he’d messed up. Forget the actual acid, for his acidic tone seemed to be enough to get him in a situation that could possibly cost him his job. Trying his hardest not to panic in the midst of the disaster he’d brought upon himself, the chicken smiled and tried his best to talk gently and comfortingly to the duckling.

“H-Hey now,” he said softly, “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re stupid. In fact, you’re one of the most not-stupid people I’ve ever met!”

Webby blinked her eyes at him for a moment before looking away again, as if she didn’t want him to see her break down. “No!” she wailed. “I’m an idiot!”

“What!? Nooooo!” Gyro was becoming more and more uncomfortable by the minute. “There are a lot of idiots in the world, but you, Webbigail, are not one of them! As a certified genius, I feel as if my opinion on this is very important. Now, if you could just stop crying, and-”

“You don’t understand!” she snapped, catching Gyro off-guard. “I’ve been trying to do this right for weeks and weeks and weeks, and I just can’t do it! Ugh, I’m stupid, stupid, stupid!” She banged her forehead against her lap.

“Hey! Don’t you dare-”

“I keep casting spell after spell after spell after spell, and none of it goes right ever! I thought I could pull this off, but I can’t! I’m just am ammature…” She brought an arm up to wipe the tears from her eyes, sniffling. “I’m never gonna get her back.”

Gyro tried his best to come up with something reassuring to tell her, but he failed. “Uh....you lost me.”

Webby sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Can I just go?”

As much as he wanted to say yes and just let the duckling free from his sight so he could go home and rest, something told him that wouldn’t be the right thing to do when he had a sad child on his hands. Maybe if it was one of the three boys he would have been less merciful, but Webbigail always had a special place in the inventor’s cold little heart. Groaning, he sat down next to the duckling, who noticed his presence and was quick to lift her head up and turn it toward him. Even he couldn’t help but frown at her red, puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

“Look, I uh….typically don’t offer this kind of service to anyone, but since you’re a child and one I know at that, I suppose it’s only morally correct of me to ask what’s going on.”

Webby wiped her eyes again and shook her head. “No. You’ll tell everyone.”

Gyro tried to shake the fear that he was making a grave mistake before speaking again. “Okay, fine. My beak is sealed.”

He could tell that Webby was debating on rather or not she wanted to tell him what was going on, but finally, she gave a sigh and prepared herself before opening her bill. “I needed the acid for a spell. I’m trying to learn magic.” 

A bit taken aback from the reply, Gyro tried to no avail not to show how shocked he was. “What!? Magic!? But-”

“Pleeeease don’t tell Scrooge or granny!” Webby begged, the desperate panic back in her voice at full blast. “They’ll be really, really mad at me!”

“I already said I won’t! I just wasn’t expecting to hear that.” Gyro scoffed. “Magic. You’re not gonna get anywhere with it, I’ll tell you that. Now, if you ever want to learn chemistry, I’ll admit it’s not really my forte, but if you talk to your grandmother, I suppose I could help-”

“No,” Webby stopped him. “It has to be magic.”

“But hydrochloric acid is something typically used in chemistry,” Gyro pointed out, still more confused than anything else. 

“I know! I mean, well, I didn’t know but….AUGH!” She gripped the ends of her hair. “It doesn’t matter. It’s pointless. I’m giving up.” 

The inventor cocked his head to the side. “Giving up on...what exactly?”

“Bringing Lena back!” Webby spat.

“Ah....Leeeena? Do I know them?”

The duckling sighed. “No, you don’t.”

Gyro sighed in relief. “Okay, good. I thought I’d gone crazy. Ha! Could you imagine that?” He laughed, hoping the humor would get a smile out of the duckling. It didn’t. “Oh, come on. That was funny." 

Webby pretended to have not even heard the jab. “She was my best friend, but she’s...gone.”

Once the reality of what Webby had said sunk in, Gyro felt a tight sensation in this chest. He certainly wasn’t expecting the child to come to him about death, of all things. Why couldn’t it have been something miniscule like childhood relationship problems or getting a cavity? He didn’t want to talk about death! The only experience with it he’d ever had that wasn’t one of his cats was...something he really didn’t want to think about under any circumstances, even if it would make the child feel better.

“Oh,” he managed. “I’m sorry.”

She sniffed. “It’s okay. I just thought I might be able to do something to bring her back…”

A sigh left Gyro’s beak. “I don’t mean to be a know-it-all, but I don’t think it’s wise for a child of your age and experience to be dealing with a spell that raises the dead.”

Webby looked confused for a moment but then shook her head. “Oh no. Lena’s not really _dead_ dead.”

“Huh?” Gyro asked, becoming even more confused with the situation each time the duckling fed him some new information.

“She was a shadow created by Magica who got zapped in the middle of the shadow war.”

“She was a _what!?_ ”

“But she’s on our side! I promise!”

“Look, kid, you’re just gonna have to give me the whole story from beginning to end because I can’t make heads or tails of anything you’ve told me,” Gyro said with a small groan. “My head’s starting to hurt a little.” 

Nodding at his request, Webby sucked in a deep breath before beginning her explanation. “When I first met Lena, I thought she was a regular duckling like me and Dewey and Huey and Louie, and we were practically inseparable for a long time and had sleepovers together and adventures! Like that one time with the money shark when we cast a friendship spell and saved the day hand-in-hand! And the terra firmians! Oh, man…” Gyro could’ve sworn he saw a smile on the duckling’s face as she talked about the good times she had with her best friend, but it soon faded.  
  
“Then we tried to find her when Magica was attacking the mansion and found out she was a spy for her all along. I thought this meant she wasn’t really my best friend, and it hurt, like a lot, but then, when we were fighting Magica, and she was about to blast me, Lena appeared out of nowhere and saved me! And then, she…” Webby gulped, fighting back tears, and Gyro gave her a stare that let her know it was okay not to say any more about what happened to her friend.

After a moment of silence, Webby looked back down at her lap and continued. “I just miss her so much. We had so much fun together, and I can’t stop thinking about her. Sometimes, I even trick myself into thinking she’s there! Isn’t that crazy? Like I’ll just wake up one morning and think “oh, I should go see Lena today!” and then I’ll remember that I can’t do that anymore.” She was fighting back tears again, almost choking on her words. “And I keep having dreams about her, every night almost! The same one! I see her, and I run up to her so I can hug her and tell her that it’s okay and that I forgive her and that she can come home so she can finally be a part of my family like she was meant to be, but then, she starts chasing me, and suddenly, there are all these Lenas just surrounding me and carrying me somewhere, but I never stay asleep long enough to find out where!”

Now, her words getting even more frantic and tears were dripping down her cheeks again. “At first, I thought that maybe she’s still somewhere in the mansion, and she’s trying to get my attention and show me something, but I guess if she was then she’d have shown me what I need to do by now…” Her words trailed off, and she gave a particularly loud sniffle. “Maybe she’s mad at me. It is kind of my fault that she got put in that situation. If Lena didn’t sacrifice herself for me, maybe she’d be...she’d...I-I don’t know where she’d be, but maybe she wouldn’t be _gone!_ ”

With that last word, Webby broke out into more uncontrollable sobs, tears falling her skirt. She balled her hands into fists and rubbed at her eyes, trying her hardest to stop it, but she couldn’t.

“I-I’m sorry, Dr. Gearloose,” she choked out, turning back to the inventor. “I didn’t mean to talk too much. I just really….”

Her voice trailed off as she realized, through her blurry, tear-filled eyes, that he was looking in her direction, but it seemed like something else was on his mind. His face was a blank slate almost, as if he was remembering something.

“Dr. Gearloose?”

“Oh!” The inventor came back to reality when he heard Webby’s voice, looking quite startled and still a little distracted. He cleared his throat, swallowing what sounded like an entire rock before speaking again. “Well...I’m really sorry that happened.”

Webby sighed, not expecting much from the surly scientist but still being a bit disheartened at his response. “Thanks, Dr. Gearloose. I-” 

“But it’s not your fault.”

“Huh?” Her eyes widened. 

“It’s not your fault she’s gone. I know it’s gonna be easy to feel like it, but it’s not.”

Webby was momentarily comforted, but any trace of a smile on her bill soon dropped. “But...she sacrificed herself for _me._ How is it not my fault?” 

Gyro took another deep breath before continuing, as if steadying himself. “Listen, I don’t know this Lena kid, but by what you’ve told me, it sounds as if she really cared for you. Now, I need you to look me in the eyes and ask yourself something.” 

Doing as he’d asked, the duckling looked the sleep-deprived inventor straight into his eyes, which she now noticed looked very tired and gloomy. She would have questioned if he was alright, but then, he spoke. 

“Do you really think Lena would blame you?”

For a moment, Webby wasn’t sure what to say, but after thinking back to all the times they’d spent together, all the moments they’d shared, everything they’d ever done for each other, she had to force herself to gulp down a few more tears while settling on her answer to Gyro’s question. She shook her head.

“I don’t think so.”

“Then I’m sure it’s fine.” Gyro tried his hardest to smile. “I...guess I can’t imagine what you must be feeling, to lose a _best friend_ in such a manner, but...through what I do know about this stuff, what you’re feeling is normal. But no matter how much you feel it, you have to keep telling yourself it’s not true. That’s...really all you can do.” 

“Oh…” Webby looked back down. “So you don’t think I can get her back?”

Gyro tried hard to think of what to say in order to give her the truth but not cause another breakdown. “I’ll tell you what. If you promise me not to get your feathers burnt off playing with the dark arts, then I’ll do some research on shadows, and let you know if I can find out what happened to your friend, including if they can contact mortals through the mindspace and anything else you might need to know.”

The duckling’s eyes grew wide, and Gyro was relieved to see her smile. “Oh my gosh, Dr. Gearloose! You’ll really do that for me?”

He rolled his eyes. “Why not? I need to work on my shadow control ray anyway.”

“Thank yoooou!” Webby pulled Gyro into a tight hug, which caused him to get a bit stiff. Noticing this, she pulled away. “Heh. Sorry. I forgot you’re not really the hugging type.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a sigh. “Do you feel better?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Now get out of my lab, you pesky urchin.” Her smile almost faded, but Gyro’s laugh saved it. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. But seriously, you should get out. It’s way past your bedtime, and if your grandmother comes looking for you, I’m afraid you might be mourning me as well.”

Another chuckle left Webby’s throat, and she got up, prompting Gyro to do the same. “Okay, Dr. Gearloose.”

Gyro held the door open for Webby and said goodbye to her as she left and thanked him once more. Once she was gone, instead of collecting Lil Bulb and heading home, the inventor found himself walking back to his desk and sitting down, staring straight ahead. He supposed that Cabrera and his boss would just have to be disappointed in him for staying up late again, trying to comfort himself by thinking it likely wasn’t the first time they’d felt that way.

Although he was glad to help Webby as much as he could, something about the conversation had unburied a feeling deep inside of him, and it made him feel a little ill, too ill to travel home. He’d just have to sit here and wait it out, the words that had just left his beak a minute or two ago echoing in his mind as he did.

 _Do you really think Lena would blame you?_  
  
_Do you really think Lena would blame you?_  
_  
_ Do you really think Lena would blame you?

 

\---

 

_“Do you really think Della would blame you?”_

_His boss’ voice startled Gyro from his breakdown, and he looked up from his hands, tears still welling in his eyes. He had to sniffle before speaking to make anything he had to say even a tiny bit audible._

_“I don’t know. She really didn’t like me.” He narrowed his eyes and glanced to the side. “And with good reason.”_

_Scrooge heaved a sigh, putting a hand on his head inventor’s shoulder. “Lad, that’s not true. I know you two were at each other’s throats most of the time, and sure, maybe she had her fair share of...colorful things to say about you, but she’s not gonna full-on blame you for something that couldn’t have been helped.”_

_“You don’t understand, Mr. McDuck,” Gyro spat at him, shouldering out of his grip. “I can’t stop thinking about this. Every second of the day, she’s on my mind. I have dreams about her! Dreams where she reminds me of how I got her killed, for crying out loud!”_  
_  
“Gyro, listen-”_

 _“There are plenty of reasons for her to blame me. I didn’t perform enough tests on the engine, and I made it with stupid, stupid Goldtech, and I left her with gum I knew she would hate, and I just…” He clenched his fists, body tensing up with an impending sob that he managed to stop at the last minute. “She probably thinks I sabotaged it or something because of a fight we had that I can’t even remember. Even if she doesn’t, I...I was…”_  
_  
_ The inventor stopped speaking, running out of any energy he had at the beginning of his hopeless rant. He slumped over in his chair, unable to look at his boss for another second. However, he could still feel him looking at him, probably thinking of how pitiful he was to break down like this, or maybe he was starting to agree with him. Maybe he thought it was his fault he didn’t have his niece anymore.

_Gyro did know one thing, though. No matter how much help he got, from Mr. McDuck or even a professional if he ever gave in and sought it out, he would never be able to shake the feeling that he could have prevented Della’s disappearance._

 

\---

 

Staring blankly ahead at nothing but pitch black darkness where an oceanic view should be, Gyro realized that thought from all those years ago was just one more thing he’d been right about.


End file.
